📝 How to make 80% of a picturebook in 4 weeks.

Week 4 of a 5 week Picture book project.

Sometime in March, a number of projects I was working on were hanging for different reasons. This created a gap in my schedule.

At approximately the same time, I go an approach to do picture book a with a 5 week deadline.

I’ll be honest it thought it was 8 weeks, when I said okay.

It’s week 5, and we’re in touching distance of getting it done but it’s going to be a busy week.

Here’s how I made it to week 5.

1. I negotiated with my wife, if I took this gig, I’ll need her to take up some of my baby related chores. She agreed.

2. In the first week I worked in small sketchbooks outside the studio, in cafe’s and such, in spare moments. Collecting ideas for spreads and characters.

3. I retuned my schedule to start in the early mornings. A teacher once told me an hour in the morning is worth two in the afternoon.

4. I tricked myself to do the early mornings by treating myself with a protein bar in the morning.

5. I built in recovery time. Which consists of healthy food, and quality time with family.

6. I exercise daily for 20 minutes, to counter the sitting fatigue and build energy.

7. I embraced 95% of the designer’s notes, trying things their way rather then over thinking complex situations.

8. This let me stand my ground on the 5% that I felt was really important, and that took 2 days to approve.

9. I leaned into my personal work from the past 2 years. That work got me hired, so I mostly used variations of that work, rather than start from scratch and that served me really well. Personal work is like putting money in the bank, I made withdrawals in these 4 weeks.

10. I made decisions and came to solutions quickly, sticking to the things I knew rather than doing risky R&D.

I have more points, but I also have drawing to do, and I did promise to keep these short. Let me know if you have questions or would like me to expand on any of the points.

And… when the publisher lets me, I will do a longer post for paid subscribers, with pictures and stuff.

So please consider subscribing.

PS: I use the money to buy the protein bars, that get get me out of the bed to do this work, leaving me just enough time to write one of these newsletters everyday.